Major music labels invest in Shazam app

Sony, Warner and Universal have reportedly invested about US$3m each into the Shazam music app in what would appear to be for marketing reasons.

The Wall Street Journal reported the music labels see huge financial potential for the app that has more than 420m users across the world as of February this year, the majority of which are based in the US despite it being a UK-based company.

By being able to listen to songs and tell the user the name of the artist and song, the producers of the app have tapped into a lucrative marketing model whereby they are able to include the logo on television adverts that when searched for through Shazam will also see adverts and marketing offers appear alongside the songs in the app.

The company has recently been valued at US$500m and this deal will mark the growing importance of the app to Sony, in particular, and Len Blavatnik, who under the banner of Warner Music Group’s Access Industries division, has already invested in Shazam and agreed to deals to create greater levels of promotion in the app for artists on the Warner label.

This latest deal comes after last month’s news that the app is likely to be integrated into Apple’s next operating system, iOS 8, which when used with its voice-command software Siri, will allow the user to search for songs without the need to download an accompanying app.